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Fastplay character generation is our "get a character, start playing instantly" option for players who are brand-new to The Road to Amber, or who currently have no active characters on the game. If you're not new, you should use our regular character generation process instead.

We recognize that it can be daunting to get on a new game, figure out the setting, page strangers asking for background hooks, and grapple with an unfamiliar RPG system. Many people like to simply play and figure things out as they go. Fastplay chargen is designed to facilitate learning the game both IC and OOC.

Amnesia, or How Not To Need To Know Anything

As a result of certain background IC circumstances, people have recently been stumbling into the edges of the Forest of Arden, from somewhere in shadow. These people have no recollection of how they came to Amber. For the most part, they were involved in some form of traumatic event right before — it's either the last thing they remember, or they bear injuries consistent with that. Some may have been fighting against the Black Road when this happened. Others simply remember being lost in the woods or the like, blacking out, and regaining consciousness in a strange place.

If you take the fastplay option, your character is one of those people. You must be from shadow. Please keep the following in mind:

Thematically, this is a fantasy game, specifically leaning towards the swords-and-sorcery genre of fantasy. Your character background should be a fantasy one. High technology, anime, superheroes, and so forth are unthematic for this game.

All characters are mortal and corporeal. Your character must be humanoid. The denizens of Amber and surrounding areas all look human. Avoid unthematic concepts such as Tolkein-esque races (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.), Star Trek-style aliens, World of Darkness-style supernaturals, and Furries.

You cannot be from Shadow Earth, as it has been destroyed by past IC events on the game. We strongly discourage Earth-like shadows, as well.

It is possible that some or all of your character's current memories are false. It's even possible that your character is native to the Golden Circle, or even Amber, without knowing it. This allows you to retroactively establish background hooks over time, as you play through and "restore" the real past.

As an amnesiac with no idea why you're here, you'll have a good excuse to learn everything IC, and to be somewhat vague about your own background.

If you stick around the game, becoming an active player, the GMs will eventually provide you with a piece of information or an item, which holds a clue to the greater puzzle of what's happened to you, and which is likely to be of interest to other characters as well. Thus, other players have some incentive to try to get you involved in things.

One thing is common to all amnesiac characters: Something that they recall about their past will turn out not to be true; in other words, they have a memory of something that definitively did not happen, or which happened in a way that's significantly different from what they remember. Someone or something has altered the past in such a way as to make the present darker, more chaotic, than it would have otherwise been. It is not necessarily personal to the amnesiac, and in fact it's preferable for it to be something that has affected more than just the character. You might want to think about what this is, when you think about your character.

Getting Started

To get a character on the game, assuming that you haven't done so already, use:

+request one-word-name = your-email-address

You'll immediately get a password in email. Log into the game using the instructions in the email.

*NOTE - You will currently get your password on your screen when you request a new character, as the game is not sending emails. *

Once you're in the game, choose your gender, by typing:

@sex me = male-or-female

Leave the new player game by typing out
Enter fastplay character generation by typing fastplay
Begin character generation by typing +rpg register

Now, you'll need to write a quick character concept. This is a single paragraph describing the character you want to play in a nutshell. This doesn't have to be overly elaborate, especially given that you're going to be playing a character who is amnesiac.

To begin writing your concept, type +bg concept

You will be placed in the game's editor.
To add text, use +ed text
To see what you've written, type +ed/proof
When you're done, type +ed/done

We like to know a little bit about what players want to see out of the MUSH — the type of play they enjoy doing and hope to find here. Please give us a sentence or two about this.

To write an answer, type +bg play
You will be placed in the game's editor again. It works just like it did for your concept.

When you're done with that, you're all set. To finish, type +fastplay done

Setting Up Your Character

You need to set a description for your character, and may want to set other preferences and information as well.

Finding Roleplay

The premise of your character's background is that you stumbled into the Forest of Arden, and from there, were either found by the dwellers in the forest or its Ranger patrols, or managed to find your way into Amber City. You're not exactly sure how you got there, and you might not really know who you are. You thus have an excuse to wander into most public areas.

To get to Amber City, type +go city

The most common gathering spots are on the Zoom system. To see a list of these places, and their current population, type +zoom

You can get almost anywhere using +zoom. To use its automatic path-finding, type:

+zoom wherever

where wherever is a shortcut name, a player's name, or a room name.

If you want to see where people are roleplaying in general, type +public

This MUSH has a culture of scene requests. In other words, you don't have to wait for people to be out in public. You can page people to request a scene. Alternatively, you can ask on the public channel:

=pub message

Please feel free to ask people for help. The Newbie channel exists for this purpose. To speak on it, use: